Murder is Everywhere

the Gallic Elvis

2013-06-18T10:51:00.001-04:00

In the US we have Elvis impersonators. In France they have Johnny Hallyday impersonators...les Johnnys. If you don't know Johnny Hallyday, and most of the world outside France except Quebec doesn't, he's now an aging French rockstar beloved by many in the land of 354 cheeses.

Johnny, like Elvis, came from humble beginnings. In Johnny's case, unlike the rural South, he was born in the center of Paris (one reason he's beloved - the French see him as a true Paris gamin) lived on rue Clauzel around the corner from where Francois Truffaut spent his childhood. If you watch the classic film 'The Four Hundred Blows' you'll see the postwar Paris streets of Johnny's and Truffaut's childhood which Truffaut used in his semi-autobiographical film. At the time the quartier was working class, full of small shops, theatres and bordered Pigalle.

Johnny's father wasn't in the picture and he was raised by his aunt, a dancer and uncle, an MC at the Cafe de Paris where Johnny got his first singing gig.
Growing up, Johnny was influenced by Elvis and the 1950s rock revolution, and became famous in the 1960s for singing rock and roll in French. The Gallic Elvis. He's still hugely popular after all this time - albeit the fans who fill the stadium are his age, he supported Sarkozy and he's got tax problems which stimulated his move to establish a residence in Switzerland. Apart from singing Johnny, like Elvis, forayed into films and some of his films in the last decade show a man who took quiet, thoughtful roles and can act, unlike Elvis.
Johnny, like Elvis, no matter what you think of his persona, outfits or antics of driving his motorcycle onstage (and my French neighbor will attest to this) has a good voice. Johnny still sells out regional stadiums and performed in a packed Stade de France a few years ago on his farewell tour. One of his several farewell tours.
But a faux Johnny got into trouble recently with an impersonator of the late Serge Gainsbourg (the cigarette smoking, iconic composer and singer who sang Je T'aime with Jane Birkin, that one and who is also an icon in France.) Below the real Johnny and Serge.

Who were friends in real-life.

Yet, in one of the more surreal cases seen in a French court, the faux Johnny was stabbed by the faux Serge who viewed him as a rival. This is from the Telegraph:
Denis Colnot, a 48-year-old fan/impersonator of singer-songwriter Gainsbourg, faces a lengthy prison term after being charged with the attack on his Johnny-loving-impersonator neighbour that was allegedly triggered by a long-running feud over the quality of their respective acts.The two men knew each other for years, but their competitiveness is thought to have got the better of them in July 2011 when 'Gainsbourg' decided he could no longer tolerate his rivals insults and allegedly attacked 'Johnny' with a kitchen knife, stabbing him in the neck.
Johnny, identified as Michel Pacchiana, survived and made a full recovery. He described his neighbour as a "cabbage head" driven by jealousy born of constantly losing to him in impersonation contests.
"It's a miracle I'm alive, I thought I was going to join my mother in heaven."
In court, Mr Colnot's lawyer said he "never intended to kill". He faces up to 30 years in prison.
Here's more background from the RFI: The two impersonators who were bitter rivals, entered the same competitions and lived in the same block of flats in the Vosges region. In July 2011 'Gainsbourg' saw 'Johnny' mowing the lawn in front of the building where they both live, hurled insults at him from his balcony and then, grabbing a kitchen knife, ran down and stabbed him in the neck within millimetres of the carotid artery.
He could no longer bear his rival's sneers, he told police, explaining that 'Johnny' had called him a "loser" and other insulting names.
The judge is due to deliver his verdict on Monday.
PS Another similarity Johnny's living and we in American know Elvis is alive, non?
Cara - Tuesday

Scene of the CrimeFest.

2013-06-17T00:00:00.000-04:00

A bit of background and a brief introduction…

Martin Luther’s quotation, “I can do no other,” succinctly sums up our buddy Leighton Gage’s motivation for putting one hundred and ten percent into everything he writes. No where is that pledge to his readers more evident than in his seven Mario Silva novels, called “top notch…controversial and entirely absorbing” by The New York Times and “a world class procedural series” by The Wall Street Journal.

It is Leighton who by his example inspires each of us to bring our A-game to every MIE post, every day, every week.

Keep it fresh, keep it strong is Leighton’s motto, and that’s precisely what’s guided him to a decision we all deeply regret, but fully understand. Leighton is a writing master who refuses to give his readers anything less than his absolute best work, something he believes he cannot do while confronting his current health problems. He has decided to step down as a regular MIE contributor so that he may concentrate on his recovery efforts. Our hopes and prayers are with Leighton and Eide and we look forward to seeing him back here with us soon.

Another Martin Luther quote comes to mind at this moment: "Even if I knew that the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree."

That, too, has Leighton written all over it, for even as he faces serious personal challenges he’s taken the time to plant a strong new tree in his Monday slot by personally selecting who shall occupy his place. In the words of The Washington Post, Annamaria Alfieri writes exotic South American tales that “glitter” “as both history and mystery.” Her debut novel, City of Silver, was called by some “one of the best first novels of the year” (Deadly Pleasures Magazine) and her second, Invisible Country, was compared to “the notable novels of Charles Todd” (Kirkus Reviews). Blood Tango (coming June 25, 2013 from St. Martin’s) is Annamaria’s latest novel and imagines the murder of an Evita Perón lookalike amid 1945 Buenos Aires.

Annamaria is a person of many talents, so much so that she needs two names. As Patricia King she’s written five books on business subjects, including Never Work for a Jerk (featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show), and her current Monster Boss. As Pat King, she’s also serving her second term as President of the New York City Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.

It is with great pleasure I welcome our new colleague, Annamaria Alfieri, to Murder is Everywhere. We’re all proud, especially Leighton.

PS. The thought of Leighton smiling just gave me an idea. One I’m sure will put a big smile on the big fellow’s face and a warm feeling in each of our hearts: May I suggest we all immediately buy at least one copy of one of Leighton’s seven Mario Silva masterpieces from our local independent bookstore, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble? Or buy all seven and feel downright giddy. :)

—Jeff

#####

CrimeFest Headquarters Hotel

As we say in New York, I didn’t know from Bristol. I had made a brief stop there years ago while touring the west of England, but true New Yorker that I am, all I did on that occasion was visit the Clifton Suspension Bridge, because I had heard it looked like the Brooklyn Bridge.

Clifton Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge

It does, but without the cathedral-like quality, and definitely without Yonas Schimmel’s Knish Bakery within walking distance.

So, while I was in the town for CrimeFest, before the Murder is Everywhere crowd arrived to buy me drinks, I took myself on a walking tour. Threatening weather held at bay that Wednesday so I had a comfortable stroll, following the Michelin Green Guide itinerary, which started and ended just a few minutes from my hotel.

Warehouses converted into condos along the river

From the Norman Arch, my path skirted @Bristol, the science museum, and crossed Pero’s Bridge. It’s a bascule bridge, a term I didn’t know. It means the span moves, using counter weights, to open the channel for boat traffic. In this case, the weights were designed to be modern sculptures.

Norman Arch

Pero's Bridge

I was surprised to learn that the bridge was named after a slave, but then, on the other side of the canal, at the M Shed Museum, I learned of Bristol’s connection to the slave trade. It turns out that though the town was first settled in the 10th Century and was England’s second largest city in the Middle Ages, it did not thrive economically until its 17th and 18th century residents made huge fortunes in the slave trade. The museum’s exhibition, in its own form of counterbalancing, juxtaposes the slaving history with that of modern citizens’ political activism.

The Old Town Walk then took me through lovely Queen Square and along cobbled King Street with its 18th and 19th century warehouses, a 17th century alms house, and Llandoger Trow—a historic pub, where I stopped off for fish and chips.

Queen Square

King Street

The Llandoger Trow

The next monument was St. Stephen’s Church, with its beautiful tower. On that Wednesday afternoon the way in was to go into a café and then through a door marked exit to find the sanctuary. One of the memorials of local merchants was decorated with a jaunty modern addition.

St. Stephen's Tower

Ancient merchant remembered

Corn Street was once a precinct of traders and money exchangers, but now the building houses a collection of small stalls selling finger food and general touristy grot.

Corn Street

St. Nicholas Market

The Church of John the Baptist straddles a medieval gate of the city and has an interesting interior, but it can’t hold a candle to the grand finale of the tour—Bristol Cathedral. There has been a church on its site for a thousand years. The 14th Century English Gothic structure was first named for St. Augustine and renamed in the Reformation. A sign over a donations box said it takes £2 per minute to maintain it. I paid my share on my way out.

Bristol Cathedral

Bristol Cathedral interior

That evening, Michael phoned and ended my lonely rambling by inviting me to a delightful dinner with Bill and Toby Gottfried. By Thursday, the others arrived and the festivities already reported here got underway. It was my first CrimeFest. I hope not miss it in the future.

Stanley, Annamaria, Jeff, Caro, Yrsa, Michael

Annamaria—Monday

Who dunnit?

2013-06-16T04:14:00.000-04:00

I'm just going to say right off the bat that I'm not going to talk about Edward Snowden and his somewhat bizarre decision to seek asylum in Hong Kong, which is still a part of China, "two systems" or not, and how China has even more pervasive surveillance than the United States with no legal restraints on how it's used.

It would lead me to talking about how the institution of universal surveillance with questionable oversight and weakened legal protection is probably not a way that we should want the United States to emulate China. How according to someone who should know, Ai Weiwei*, the United States is doing precisely that, except that our citizens live under a rule of law that shields us from the worst impulses of the state.

*Chinese contemporary artist who helped design the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing and later ended up getting a hood over his head at the Beijing Capital Airport and dragged off to a semi-legal three month detention. The charges brought afterwards were tax evasion

Then, how the erosion of our Constitutional principles and the outsized influence of money in our political system is leading the US ever further down a road of increasingly seamless integration of state and corporate influences, where profit is the ruling principle, and power is only limited by the amount of it one has and one's willingness to use it. But if I say stuff like that without presenting some evidence, I worry about sounding like a candidate for a Reynolds Wrap chapeau.

And, I just read this very interesting and persuasive article about how metadata is a means of social engineering that could be used as "a tool for a plutocracy." For example, your opinions, buying habits and tax bracket might make getting credit just slightly more difficult. Or slightly more expensive.

The author of this particular piece is Jaron Lanier, an American computer scientist and internet visionary who popularized the phrase, "Virtual reality," and has written critically of "Web 2.0." Among other things, he refers to the so-called "Wisdom of Crowds" as "Digital Maoism," which is the kind of thing that I would like to say but fear would get me labeled as an out-of-touch elitist.

But I'll say that there's a problem with creating "all the infrastructure a tyrant would need" and "counting on having angels in office," as this cogent piece in The Atlantic puts it:

...we're allowing ourselves to become a nation of men, not laws. Illegal spying? Torture? Violating the War Powers Resolution and the convention that mandates investigating past torture?

No matter. Just intone that your priority is keeping America safe. Don't like the law? Just get someone in the Office of Legal Counsel to secretly interpret it in a way that twists its words and betrays its spirit.

You'll never be held accountable.

And, that what I'm thinking lately is, if you want to understand what has happened to the American economy and why we are where we are politically, approach it like a murder mystery.

In a murder mystery, somebody gets killed, and the central question is motivation.

Who benefits?

And, oh yeah, I have a new book coming out Tuesday.

Lisa...Sunday...

Today is a Day for Singing!

2013-06-15T00:00:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear, daddy-grandpa-boyfriend, happy birthday to me.

Well, I guess that just about says it all. Except for the number of candles on the cake. And who even bothers to count anymore anyway. Once you hit forty it’s all the same. Or is it fifty? Or is it… Just can’t quite remember at the moment.

And if you have to pick a place to celebrate a birthday, it’s hard to beat the place I now call home. I’ve celebrated more birthdays on Mykonos than anywhere else on the planet. And my parents weren’t Gypsies. I lived in or around Pittsburgh until graduating college. Then it was off to Boston, for a bride, a baby boy, and law degree. Then on to NYC for a career, baby girl, and bye-bye bride (a still grand lady).

A street in my Pittsburgh neighborhood

Then came Greece. And it obtains.

No wonder. Look at these photos. No (h)airbrushing, just the effects of jet lag on the fishermen struggling to catch something other than a cold while free-diving a few days ago off the coast of Mykonos.

I’d like to share some photos of my birthday dinner tonight, but without my time travel machine that’s not possible. So, I make you a promise: I’m having my birthday party celebration when my grandchildren and their parents (notice the order of importance) come over for a visit. I’ll post photos of that event. Assuming I remember the camera.

As for birthday presents, no need to send any. I received mine serendipitously this past week from a tourist who stopped by where I live on Mykonos to ask me to autograph a copy of my first Andreas Kaldis novel, Murder in Mykonos. Yes, that in and of itself was a great honor—even though not quite as visually stimulating as the fan who once approached me on a beach au natural (link to that article here)—but what really made my day was what the gracious woman said after I’d signed and thanked her.

“Have you seen this?” It was a copy of Fodor’s Guide to the Greek Islands (2012).

“No.”

She opened the guidebook to page 297, and in the introduction to the section titled MYKONOS AFTER DARK, pointed out this sentence:

"Some say that after midnight, Mykonos is all nightlife––this throbbing beat is the backdrop to Jeffrey Siger's popular mystery, Murder in Mykonos."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I felt as if I’d just won an Oscar. Screw Kirkus (only kidding) or the New York Times (REALLY only kidding), I’d made Fodor’s!

And in a most bizarre coincidental twist, the title of my new book coming in September—one that throbs and then some to the island’s magical beat—is MYKONOS AFTER MIDNIGHT!

Wow. I want to thank my parents, the academy…

A few parting words on this significant occasion [nod to the camera]. Somewhere out there is a throbbing beat calling out your name; go with it while everything else is still ticking.

Jeff—Saturday

Bible John/Peter Tobin. One and the same?

2013-06-14T00:30:00.000-04:00

Bible John. Case unsolved.

Or is it?

The debate rages on. Bible John killed three women in Glasgow in the late 1960’s and by the 70's the name had almost drifted into folklore. ‘You’d better behave or Bible John will get you!’

Pat Docker

The story starts on 23rd February 1968 when the naked body of Patricia Docker (25) was found in a lane just yards from her home. She had been raped and strangled after leaving the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow city centre.

Jemima McDonald.

Early morning, 15th August 1969 a rumour was flying round a Glasgow street that some kids had found a body in an old tenement. Margaret McDonald, knowing her sister had failed to come home from her night dancing at the Barrowland, feared the worst and followed the children. Before the police arrived Margaret had already found the body of her sister Jemima - strangled, raped and beaten.

Helen Puttock

Then on 31st October 1969, 29-year-old Helen Puttock was found murdered in Earl Street in Scotstoun. She too had visited the Barrowland Ballroom on the night she died. Helen and her sister Jean, had been in the company of the killer for over an hour at the dancehall, in the taxi rank and then on the drive home. That chit chat in the back of the cab was the birth of both the name and the legend of ‘Bible John’. The nickname came from the fact that he quoted scripture at the girls in the dancehall and the taxi.

I was talking to criminologist Prof David Wilson about the case and he made it clear that very few people have actually read the sister’s original statement. It’s often overlooked that she was probably a little worse for drink at the time of the encounter and traumatised by the time the police took her statement. Jeanie’s evidence, maybe wrongly, was considered a huge breakthrough as there had been no other witnesses to ‘John.’ After Jeanie's famous photofit there followed the biggest manhunt in Scottish criminal history; 5,000 men interviewed, 50,000 statements collected.

Then the killings stopped.

Over the years there have been a few false starts to bring the killer to justice. In 1996, the police exhumed the body of a cousin of one of the original suspects to test the DNA against a semen stain on Helen Puttock's tights. (The original suspect had committed suicide aged 41 in 1980). It did not match.

In 2004, police announced they were to DNA test a number of men in a further attempt to solve the case. Again the tests yielded nothing.

The story then moves on to 2006 when the body of a Polish student, Angelika Kluk was found hidden beneath the floorboards of a church in the middle of Glasgow where she was spending her second summer, living in the church house free of charge. She had gone missing several days before. She had been brutally murdered. Many strange stories unfurled during the investigation; Kluk 23, had been having an affair both with the priest 62, and with a 40 year old married man.

However, in May 2006 a man called Pat McLaughlin had called at the church one night during a thunder storm, claiming he was homeless. He asked the priest if he wanted the place 'tidied up a bit' and was accepted as the church handyman. Pat called Angelika his 'wee apprentice'. They were seen laughing and joking together as they painted a shed on the day she disappeared.

Then Pat was admitted to hospital under false pretences. His real name was Peter Tobin. He went on the run.

Vicky

Tobin was then linked to two other murders; Dinah McNicoll and Vicky Hamilton who’d both been missing since 1991. Vicky's body was found in the back garden of the house Tobin had rented in the early 90's in Margate (490 miles from where she was taken in Scotland). Buried yards from it was a bin bag containing the remains of Dinah.

Tobin was found guilty of all three murders at separate trials.

Vicky, Angelika, Dinah

The similarities of these killings to the Bible John murders did not go unnoticed. Operation Anagram was set up to investigate all similar murders GB wide; they stopped at 38. 38 women who had gone missing where Tobin was living at that time, before deciding it was not in the public interest to go any further. Anagram included the Bible John killings as part of their investigation. Inconclusive.

There was a famous artist impression of Bible John... and a picture of Tobin now and Tobin regressed.

Tobin's first wife is convinced that Tobin is not Bible John. She feels that Bible John is either dead or still free. Tobin was a very violent husband so she is not surprised he has been convicted of the murders of Vicky, Dinah and Angelika. But she says they were on honeymoon when the second Bible John killing happened. They were away in England from the 6th for two weeks. The killing was on the fourteenth. But that was a very long time ago and memories are not always accurate. Also he was arrested on his honeymoon so not always 'there'. She also says that Tobin was not religious and that the description of Bible John does not match. Tobin always used a knife, even on his wife who he nearly killed in one attack. Bible John never did use a knife. But killers like everybody else, evolve.

Both David Wilson and Tobin's ex wife agree on one point - Bible John and Tobin had a very similar knowledge of Glasgow. Looking up from the dumpsite of the second victim, the killer would be looking right into the back window of the flat where Tobin's in-laws lived. That is some co-incidence.

More than 42 years have passed. Tobin is saying nothing except to taunt a prison psychiatrist that he had killed 48 women. And then challenged the authorities to prove it.

Among the detectives involved in the triple-murder hunt was Joe Jackson who went on to head Glasgow's CID. He is convinced that Bible John is Tobin. "I saw his photo after the church killing and thought, 'This is as near Bible John as you're going to get'.

Tobin left Scotland in 1969 - the year the killings stopped. His DNA does not match the Puttock semen stains but Jackson does not rule him out because the semen may not have been the killer's in the first place.

David with his book about Tobin. It convinced me.

Prof David Wilson noticed a very interesting thing that convinced him Tobin and Bible John were one and the same. Reading the statement of the sister back in the 60's, she said that Bible John liked to appear superior in a very particular way. When the sister's said they liked to get drunk at Hogmanay, Bible John said he liked to pray. When they joked about Rangers and Celtic. Bible John said he did not like football, he liked golf. All those years later, Dinah's companion recalled similar nuances in conversation with the man who gave them a lift. He had tut-tutted when they said they were going to a rock concert....did they not listen to classical music?

It was a pattern that occurred again and again when witnesses were interviewed.

So indeed it might be Tobin.

Then again it might not.

Caro GB 14/06/2013

Hamlet had tennis elbow

2013-06-13T07:46:00.000-04:00

Shakespeare at Elsinore

I have always been puzzled by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. If you remember, Claudius was Hamlet’s uncle. Claudius killed his own brother, Hamlet’s father, and then married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Obviously he did this so he could succeed to the throne, which he did.

Needless to say, Hamlet was upset.

But what did he do about it?

Nothing! He wandered around muttering to himself, even though the ghost of his father told him what had happened. Any self-respecting prince would have run Claudius through. But no, Hamlet did nothing.

Why? That’s the puzzle.

Of course, if Hamlet had just reacted like any hot blooded young man would, the play would have been over before the end of Act 1, which would have ruined Shakespeare’s reputation. So academics have spent hundreds of years trying to explain Hamlet’s weird behaviour.

Several theories have been advanced over the years trying to explain Hamlet’s reluctance to do Claudius in. Freud, in his The Interpretation of Dreams, concludes that Hamlet had an Oedipal Complex, and had an Oedipal desire for his mother. If he killed Claudius, he would then be hurting his mother. So he held off – and in doing so drove himself mad.

Other interpretations of Hamlet’s behaviour have suggested that he was sexually attracted to his mother. In the closet scene, where he confronts Gertrude in her private quarters, he is disgusted by her incestuous relationship with Claudius, but is concerned that if he kills Claudius, he would be tempted to sleep with her himself.

A different type of explanation for Hamlet’s reluctance to kill Claudius suggests that Hamlet is just an ineffectual intellectual. There is much to support this notion:

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” (Act 2, scene ii)

“To be or not to be: that is the question.” (Act 3, scene i)

Freud also hints that Hamlet couldn’t make a strong decision because Hamlet thinks “he himself is literally no better than the sinner whom he is to punish.”

And Hamlet himself, when he has the opportunity to kill Claudius when he is praying, hesitates because he thinks that someone killed while praying will go to heaven.

“A villain kills my father; and for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.” (Act 3, scene iii)

Of course he still does nothing.

As a recovering academic, I see that all these explanations are meant to dazzle fellow academics, thus hopefully leading to tenure. But none of them is correct.

I discovered the real truth yesterday when I visited Kronborg Castle in Helsingør (Elsinore) - where all of the action of Hamlet takes place - to commune with the plethora of ghosts who still hang out there.

Kronborg Castle (Elsinore)

Kronborg Castle (Elsinore) - Sweden in background

Self-portrait at the top of the castle

“Why didn’t Hamlet kill Claudius right away?” I asked the wispy group.

It was poor Ophelia (in love with Hamlet, but told to reject him by her father Polonius and brother, Laertes) who gave me the reason.

“Don’t believe any of the academic claptrap,” she said. “It’s simple. He had tennis elbow and couldn’t use his sword!”

I gasped at this academic sacrilege.

“We used to play a lot of royal tennis in our outdoor court between the moats,” she continued. “Hamlet was a fiend and liked to win. Eventually he had to stop because he got a mild case of sunstroke (“I am too much I’ the sun.” Act 1, scene ii), as well as a painful case of tennis elbow.”

Outdoor real (royal) tennis court building

The real (royal) tennis court itself

What caused Hamlet's pain!

“That’s really painful,” I said. “I had it once, and it lasted for months.”

“Yes. He became very impatient with the usual heat treatment because the pain didn’t go away. He would curse and swear at his arm (“O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew.” Act 1, scene ii), but his mother kept telling him to be patient (“Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience.” Act 3, scene iv).

“He kept testing to see if the arm had healed. He used to take hold of me and tried to straighten his arm (“”He took me by the wrist and held me hard; Then he goes to the length of all his arm.” Act 2, scene i). It was pitiful (“And, with his other hand thus o’er his brow, .. . . He raised a sigh so piteous and profound As it did seem to shatter all his bulk.” Act 2, scene i).

“In the end, his mother decided to send him south to the warmer climate of England, where he could convalesce.”

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“It must have worked, because he came back – I wasn’t around then because I'd drowned – and had a fencing match with my brother Laertes. Poor Gertrude toasted the two of them, but didn’t realize the chalice of wine had been poisoned by Claudius. So she died. Laertes didn’t play fair, and tipped his sword with poison. He scratched Hamlet, who realized what was going on. He managed to grab Laertes sword and scratch him back. Then he realized that Claudius was still alive, so he stabbed him and made him drink the poisoned wine just to make sure he died.

"What a mess. Bodies all over the place! It would have been much better had Hamlet killed Claudius right away. Then we would have got married and had kids and lived happily ever after.”

So there you have it – from someone who should know.

Hamlet delayed in killing Claudius, not because of those airy-fairy academic reasons we read about, but because he had tennis elbow.

Stan - Thursday

Clouds in the sky, clouds in my head

2013-06-12T16:03:00.000-04:00

They say that a picture speaks a thousand words. So I need not go into how appalling the weather has been so far this summer. Just a few words about how it teases us now and again by reminding us that there is still a blue sky somewhere up there and that the sun continues to sun shine brightly behind the clouds.

There are some that have an interest in the weather remaining gray. The most obvious group are the owners of travel agencies. Trips to the tropics are selling like hotcakes.

Everyone is hoping that we are not about to experience the same type of summer as in 1983, the summer known here as the „the evil summer of rain“ (hið illræmda rigningarsumar). That year the sun forgot us completely. Keep in mind that we need summer sun to counteract the dark winters.

I realise while typing this that I really have nothing to say. Discussing weather is a sure fire sign of this. I guess it has something to do with nothing special going on here at present, the other day the first and main news story on the radio was about a guy who had almost gotten hurt while canoeing. It makes one think that they should consider having a novelist on standby to make up stuff since something that almost happened is considered news. The novelist news stories could be about things that could have happened. There is not a whole lot of difference between almost happened and could have happened. Could have happened would at least have the potential for being interesting.

So what does one do on an international blog site when one’s country comes up dry? Well, I suppose I could take onboard the other Nordic countries - seeing that I am probably supposed to cover that section of the world.

On Sunday I am going to Sweden so this is where I will start. My next blog will be about Sweden. Until then I will tell you offhand what I know, or think I know about the country:

Income tax is about 110%

Everyone is tall, blond and beautiful

Their flag was designed by a colorblind person

The guy who owns IKEA is named Ingvar

Ingvar drives a 30 year old Volvo (could have something to do with the taxes)

Paid maternity leave lasts until the child has a child

On Christmas women wear a wreath of leaves on their heads in honor of St Lucia. On this they put candles. And they actually light them.

They have an endless supply of great crimewriters. But no crime.

I get everything except I don’t understand the St Lucia connection. And I wonder what HSE has to say about lighting candles placed on top of a head, decorated with dried out leaves and full of hair.

So Sweden it is. See you next week.

Yrsa - Wednesday

So two Rabbi's walk into a jewelry store on the Cote d'Azur

2013-06-11T02:16:00.000-04:00

and say 'Open the safe.' Not a great punchline or a joke. Not even 'Stick em up' or the French equivalent since the 'Rabbi's' had the jeweler with them.

It went like this. On Wednesday morning 70 year old Monsieur Gabetti, owner of Gabetti Bijouterie, left his apartment building in the center of Marseilles. Outside his building he was taken captive at gunpoint. Four men shot pepper spray to hide their tracks and drove him to his jewelry store. Two of the men were dressed as Orthodox Hassidic Rabbis and all four carried Kalishnikov rifles. Monsieur Gabetti, himself Jewish, was beaten and the contents of his shop cleaned out. But it didn't end there. The gang took the jewelry and Monsieur Gabetti out of the city and abandoned him at a gas station on the motorway.

Back at his apartment some 50 local firemen, alerted to a strange smell by residents, were forced to evacuate around 30 people from the apartment block and 11 were confined to their homes for several hours. Several of those affected suffered respiratory trouble and two were taken to the hospital. Monsieur Gabrtti's in hospital, suffering shock and bruises. No value has been given to his losses.

Is their a trend going on? A day or two later in London in broad daylight six Burka clad men armed with axes carried out a "smash-and-grab" raid at London's Selfridges department store.

Police said the robbers, reportedly dressed in burkas, smashed glass cabinets to steal high value watches. Two suspects were later arrested when they came off a moped and members of the public stopped them fleeing.
The store in Oxford Street tweeted no-one was hurt in Thursday's robbery. The value of the stolen watches has yet to be established.at Selfridge's. Like lightening, a customer said, we heard the sound of breaking glass, saw these black clad figures and didn't know what was going on .'
What's next?
Cara - Tuesday

Guest Author, Lenny Kleinfeld: Forget it, Jake, It's Malibu

2013-06-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

Our guest author today is the incomparable Lenny Kleinfeld. If you’re not familiar with Lenny's work you’re missing something really special. Make that really hysterically special. Lenny’s first novel, “Shooters And Chasers,” is one of the funniest crime novels I ever read. His recently completed second, “Some Dead Genius”—the manuscript of which Leighton and I were privileged to read—is the funniest. As Lenny puts it, the exact date “Some Dead Genius” will be inflicted on the public has yet to be determined. Lenny began his career as a playwright, columnist and freelance writer in Chicago. Then he sold a screenplay. He is currently 27 years into a business trip to Los Angeles.

—Jeff

A few weeks ago Jeff wrote about an elderly couple on Mykonos being hassled by a rent-a-cop, for allegedly trespassing a private sightline because they were looking at the sea, over a privately owned seawall.

Ha.

For the past forty years, people attempting to walk or sit on public beaches in Malibu have been hassled by wealthy beachfront homeowners and their rent-a-cops, some of whom are motorized infantry.

Malibu Private Patrol

Which is, what's the word, illegal.

And we're not even talking about giving the public access to the whole width of the beach. By law, the easements for these shoreline properties give the homeowners privacy rights on the sand above the high tide line. The rabble—anybody who can't afford to shell out twenty, thirty, forty million or more to build a weekend getaway—are only entitled to sully the damp part of the beach. Yet for many Malibu homeowners that's an intolerable intrusion, even if it is, what's the word, legal.

Tide Lines

Plus which many of those same building permits require homeowners to provide access from the road out front—the Pacific Coast Highway—to the beaches. But a significant number have ignored that requirement. Most famously, multimedia mogul David Geffen.

He signed an agreement in 1983 to build a vertical easement—an accessway to the beach—in exchange for a permit to build a swimming pool. After the pool was completed Geffen filed a lawsuit challenging the requirement.

A mere twenty-two years of bad publicity later, Geffen backed down; the gates to the accessway were opened in 2005. Part of the bad publicity had been a series of Doonesbury comic strips, in which the resident stoner/surfer Zonker participated in demonstrations to liberate the beaches (below the high tide line). When the matter was finally resolved, this victory strip appeared:

Zonker-Malibu

Later, in real life, a beach accessway near the Malibu Pier was consecrated in Zonk's fictional honor.

Zonker Map

Geffen, though, is hardly alone in his attempts to assert sovereignty over a slice of the Pacific shore. California Coastal Commission guidelines call for an accessway every 1000 feet. In Malibu, that works out to 105 passages. Right now there are 17. Since 1973, homeowners have signed 29 agreements to provide vertical easements on their property. Nine have opened. Twenty remain neck-deep in lawsuit quicksand.

But wait, there's more. Various beachfront residents, even some whose properties contain vertical easements, try to make using them as difficult as possible, through a combination of locked gates, camouflage and mendacity. Not just about the beach access, but about public parking spaces that have mysteriously sprouted NO PARKING signs, or been barricaded by orange traffic cones like those used by road crews. And my favorite: fake driveways, to fool motorists into thinking that parking in front of them is verboten.

Malibu Scams

But this summer a digital Joan of Arc has ridden to the rescue. Or as the locals know her, Jenny of Venice. Well, originally of St. Louis.

Jenny Price is an environmental scholar/journalist (she has something called a PhD, from someplace called Yale), who's written extensively about Malibu Beach Imperialism. And now she's become a political apptivist.

Jenny Price

She joined forces with a firm called Escape Apps. They mounted a Kickstarter campaign that raised thirty thousand dollars, which they're using to create Our Malibu Beaches, an app that will be given away free all this summer.

Our Malibu Beaches is a guide to all the legal ways to get to the legally public beach—and a guide to all the illegal scams which can be legally ignored.

So if you're going to San Francisco be sure to wear a flower in your hair, and bring a fully loaded wallet, that town is pricey. If you're going to Los Angeles be sure to load Jenny's Malibu beach app in your phone, if you're in the mood to insert yourself into some billionaire's vertical easement.

--Lenny

Cat People

2013-06-09T03:31:00.000-04:00

AIYEE!!! AIYEE!!! My book launches in a week and a couple of days. Does anyone have a headless chicken GIF? Because that would be me.

I did a quick trip up to San Francisco for a wonderful event, where I got to hear some amazing authors read and even better, I made some new friends after. San Francisco is an awesome literary town. No doubt about it. Tonight I flew back to San Diego. I'll be here a week, and then start on all the book launch events, beginning with one at the fabulous Mysterious Galaxy Redondo Beach. I am pretty sure there will be wine. And cupcakes.

Anyway...here's a short post about cats. In China.

There's a Cat Lady in the Beijing compound where I was staying. Old, round, bundled up in layers of quilted, padded clothing, hunched over a wheeled cart she fills with kibble and canned food for her charges, the outside cats who live on the grounds. Apparently they have different food preferences, and she is very concerned with making sure that each gets what it wants. She has her own tribe of cats too, indoor cats, "four or five," she told one of my hosts, as if she weren't sure.

I had a chance to talk to her briefly, as she made her rounds. I stayed at a distance but still frightened the orange and white kitty she was feeding, though she told me that he ran off when she tried to give him medicine for his ear: "he has a hole in his ear," she explained. "The first time I gave him medicine, he wasn't afraid, but the second time, he was." I wish I could have understood everything that she told me, but I did get that much.

I saw one of the cats she feeds as I was leaving for the airport today, sitting in a box against the wall, a little shelter against the bitter cold of the last few days. He is a big orange cat, regal, wonderful coat, and if anything, slightly overfed, and he sat there with his eyes half-closed looking content with his box and his world.

I like that there are cat ladies in Beijing. I like that this elderly woman gives care and attention to these cats and receives affection and satisfaction in return. Pets were considered a "bourgeois" habit in the past, and though you can always make arguments about the morality of caring for pets in a country where millions live on the razor's edge of poverty, to me, it's a sign of humanity allowing to shine.

My favorite Beijing bar is a little place on a hutong off Gulou Dong Dajie, owned by a Mongolian. He recently took in two kittens -- I saw them in July when they were tiny, and again in November, at the beginning of my trip -- two adolescent females with the run of the bar, climbing on the laps of patrons and up and down the tree in the small courtyard. The owner lavishes considerable attention on these kittens. They have their food (good quality) and their litter and if you ask him about them, his eyes go all soft. Apparently this is a change from his former persona: "He used to be a conquerer of the steppes!" a friend told me. I always thought he seemed friendly enough, but apparently he was somewhat of a hard-ass. No more.

My last night in Beijing, I stopped in at the bar to meet that friend for a drink. The kittens were not there. The owner had taken them in to get spayed the day before. We asked after them. The owner explained: "They are at home. They need to xiuxi" - to rest.

Lisa -- Sunday...

It's the Best of Times...

2013-06-08T00:00:00.000-04:00

Early June or mid-September, that is the question. Whether it is nobler for the mind and body to be on Mykonos then or not. Ah, perchance to dream, but never to sleep.

Okay, have I messed up enough famous lines yet? If not, I could do a riff on a statistic Yrsa mentioned in her blog post on Wednesday that might be the seminal reason for why so many tourists love all that coming to Greece entails. Yes, the statistic is that Greece ranks #1 in the world for sex.

But none of that has anything to do with this piece. I’m talking about seasons not sessions. June and September are my absolute favorite times. Why? It’s simple. Things are within your control during those months.

The island’s not inundated by the tourists of July or overwhelmed by the hordes of August. It’s a different, softer island. There’s still a lot to do, but there are also places in which to do absolutely nothing…if you want it that way.

For example last night at around one in the morning I passed through this tiny square at the very heart of the old town’s Little Venice jumping nightlife area. In season I’ve more than once come across statisticians working on their figures in that spot, but now you can sit and contemplate the classics with barely another soul passing by. That’s not to say there isn’t action. Just of a different sort.

For example, here are photos taken earlier in the evening just off the old town’s central shopping street of Matogianni on a much smaller street running just behind, and parallel to, the harbor. The ambiance of the lane reminds many of Paris (or at least the Paris of fond memories), and it draws the international ex pat community most evenings with its peppering of tiny cafes and champagne bars.

Tonight was special. Three good friends were performing: Canadian fine artist Brian Piccini, American fine artist and musician Ken Richards, and Ken’s wife, American songstress extraordinaire Donna Harris. They’re a guaranteed draw for any bar that hosts them. And not just any crowd, but a sophisticated, music loving one [Ed. Note: Those are not buzz words for “old folks adverse to statistics.”].

Donna Harris, Ken Richards, Brian Piccini at Notorious

Nights like that always remind me of the old days. But perhaps I should look upon it more as a reminder that on Mykonos you can schedule your holidays to summon up precisely the sort of holidays you desire. Wild action crowds: August. Calm times amid whatever action you desire: June and September. In between: July. And then there is October when the locals return to sanity and the weather generally cooperates by carrying summer and warm seas on into November.

But how would I know about such things? These days all I do is sit in my garret writing as the world passes me by.

Pause for the distinct sobbing sounds of sympathizing readers.

I think I’ll just have to force myself to get out there and engage in more research. But wait, I’ve finished that book, the one coming out in September that deals with precisely what its title promises, MYKONOS AFTER MIDNIGHT.

AHA! I know. I must get out there and fact check. One can’t be too careful.

By the way, on the way back from CrimeFest in Bristol UK we connected into Athens through Brussels. This was just about the last thing I saw on the ground when departing the rest of the EU for Greece.

And this was one of the first things I saw after landing on Mykonos.

Any questions about why tourists come to flock here and forget? Yes, flock.

Jeff—Saturday

Guest Blog Gordon Brown; Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival

2013-06-07T00:30:00.000-04:00

All together now,

"B. A. Y. B. A. Y. B. A. Y . C. I. T. Y

R. O. L. L. E. R. S.

The Bay City Rollers are the best."

That's how the tune goes!

Due to bad timing, Crimefest finished on Sunday and Scottish Crime Fiction Week started on Monday. So I am here, there and occasionally everywhere at once.

Those Crimefest dudes, Adrian and Myles must have sat down and had an idea about a festival of Crime Fiction in a pub at some point in time and the rest is history. My guest blogger was caught up in a similar train of thought in 2011. All will be revealed as I introduce the rather marvelous super being that is Gordon Brown

( no not that one!)

This one.....tall bloke, looking like he's been up to something!

He is one third of the brains behind Scotland's own crime festival. Basically two blonde crime writers came up with an idea, but this is the blog from the redhead who got it all going.

Like me, Gordon has his own business and that can make finding the time for writing problematic. He is blessed in that he can write in ten minute bursts - Martini style (anytime, anywhere, anyplace!). Also he is a Glaswegian, and his marketing company deal with everything from alcohol to global charities and from TV to lingerie.

His debut novel, the thriller ‘Falling’, was published in 2009- think James Bond - if James Bond had been written by Willie MacIlvanney and you won't be far wrong. The new book , ‘The Catalyst’, is next on my 'to read' list once crime week is over. As I have not read it yet, here's a review from the Sunday Mail.

Cracking premise, blistering action and swarms of dodgy bad guys in suits- The Catalyst is an explosive riot that keeps the suspense dial turned to high from beginning to end.

So if you ever see a six foot five redheaded bloke at the bar at a crime festival doing the Bay City Roller dance you can now join him as you know the words..... Oh Sorry Gordon, did you ask me not to mention that.....

Not The Day Job

(or being at the birth of a new crime writing festival)

by Gordon Brown

I’m sitting at the Crime Writers lunch a few years back enjoying great company, food and a lack of wine – driving does that to lunches. I was fresh back from the Harrogate Crime Festival and I commented to fellow authors - Lin Anderson and Alex Gray about the number and quality of Scottish Crime Writers in attendance. Lin and Alex then regaled me with a story of Prosecco and frustration - the idea of a festival to celebrate Scottish Crime Writing that had been born over a glass of the white stuff but was, as yet, still some way in the future. My mouth, never one to wait for my brain to engage, decides that five words are appropriate at this juncture. ‘How hard can it be?’ I’m heard to say.

How hard can it be? I’ll tell you now - a damn site harder than it appeared to be on that sunny, Friday afternoon. Why? Well hands up to those who happen to have the spare time - that is, unpaid spare time - to organize what would turn out to be thirty events over three days involving some 40 authors. Oh and it needed to be profitable and professionally run.

So off we go.

First up we need a team. Contact books, friends and relations get us off the ground and the first chapter of the new venture is written. Everybody is allocated tasks from contacting authors, to raising cash, to the marketing of the event. Things look good. We’re over a year out from the proposed date but time is a devil with quick feet. We need a location. We need finance. We need more help. We need a website. We need venues. We need a name. We need, we need, we need. (Oh and ‘Bloody Scotland’ is such a good name – well done Lin).

Meanwhile we’re all trying to do our day jobs. I’m a creativity trainer and marketing strategist – honestly I’m not making it up – that’s what I do. I also write. I’ve had three novels published to date – Falling, 59 Minutes and The Catalyst. To add to my life I’m a DJ at the local radio station – ‘Laid Back with Gordon and Scott’ is Pulse 98.4FM’s most horizontal show. On top of that I have two kids ploughing through school and university whilst my lovely wife, Lesley, is doing a postgraduate degree. Also, at the time we started the whole ‘Bloody Scotland’ thing, I had clients who were inconveniently located in ‘Englandshire’ so overnights were the norm and to top it all my new book was being crafted. All in all I couldn’t find two seconds to take a deep breath. And to be fair that’s when stuff works. I’m of the opinion that the mantra – ‘if you want something done give it to a busy person’ – is up there with ‘If you don’t ask you don’t get’ as the sagest of advice.

Did we make mistakes along the way? – hell yes! Underestimating the workload was one. Considering a hotel that wasn’t even built was another. But we had our share of wins. Getting Val McDermid and Ian Rankin onside from the outset gave us kudos. An ever expanding committee with just the right magic mix helped and picking Stirling as the location was wonderful – thanks to Stirling Council for all their help.

So the Bloody Scotland express train was heading for the 14^th of September 2012 – three days of literary fun over one long weekend. We had a wonderful launch in the June to announce the festival. Meanwhile I’m door knocking for commercial partners and, through Sandra and her husband Donnie, we gain a main sponsor. Our wonderful chair, Jenny Brown, and a ton of work from the team provide some great funding from Creative Scotland and Visit Scotland – along with support from Stirling University and others to numerous to mention.

We have monthly meetings that turn into daily meetings. Suddenly the whole thing is real.

Over the weekend it’s all hands to the pumps. We recruit a front of house manager who has now been kidnapped to be the main man for the 2013 event (hard lines Dom). At the festival I’m down to chair a panel of four authors and among my many other tasks I need to read the latest book from each to prepare for my session. The weekend finishes with a Sherlock Holmes play - ‘The Red Headed League.’ Many of our star authors (including me) are on stage - well as a red head it was compulsory I took part. The curtain comes down and we all collapse to the ground.

Was it a success – absolutely? We targeted 2,500 ticket sales and exceeded 4,000 in the end. We got some wonderful media coverage and the feedback from visitors was brilliant. Oh and we made a profit but as a charitable business it all goes back into this years event.

Did we learn any lessons? The fact that 2013 is about to happen maybe suggests that we have forgotten the pain of birth and in a rosy (or should that be Prosecco) light we’re really keen sado-masochists at heart. On the other side of the coin the line up for this year is stunning. Bloody Scotland 2013 will take place on the 13^th to 15^th of September – Lee Child and Jo Nesbo headlining with many others – tickets on sale at www.bloodyscotland.com. (Advertisement over)

Is life any quieter for any of us? No. So why do it again? Love! What did I get out of it? Well a pride in being at the start of something great comes to mind. Immersion in the world of writing is another. But mainly it wasn’t my day job. It was (still is) fresh, exciting and an adventure. Is it the best thing I’ve done in the last few years? Maybe, and I only say maybe because I’m very proud of my new book and I’m also amazed that I was given the role of master of ceremonies on the main stage of a two day music festival with my fellow radio DJ – so rock’n’roll and a story for another day.

I’m not sure what this blog is about. I think I started off to tell you about Bloody Scotland but I think it’s more about trying stuff in life that makes you a bit nervous. Stuff that isn’t the day job.

GB for GB 07/06/13

Guesting for Caro.

Back in South Africa

2013-06-06T13:13:00.002-04:00

I'm having a brief sojourn at home in Johannesburg after our whistle-stop book tour. The trip involved various events in Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Beverley Hills (NOT California), Ann Arbor, Oconomowoc, Baltimore, Bethesda (Malice), Pittsburgh (Festival of Murder) and Bristol (Crimefest). As always, the best part was meeting old and new friends and readers and, in particular, linking up with the MurderIsEverywhere team. Now I've been discovering what everyone's been doing at the university while I was away...and getting ready for another trip - this time to Florida for an image processing conference.

All this is nothing more than an excuse for not having a new blog ready for today. So I'm reposting a slightly updated one about someone I greatly respect and admire, who has written a novel with a similar backstory to Deadly Harvest - Unity Dow.

Unity Dow is an extraordinary woman by any standards, but even more so by the standards of male-oriented Botswana. Born in 1959, she became a lawyer and immediately took up the cause of women’s rights in Botswana. In a landmark case, she challenged the constitutionality of a law which excluded her children from citizenship because of her husband’s foreign nationality. She won this, solidifying the equal gender rights promised by the constitution. Later she became a High Court judge – the first woman member – and served for 11 years. During that time she was one of the justices involved in the High Court challenge that gave the Bushman peoples the right to return to their traditional lifestyle in the Kalahari. She later served on a commission redrawing the Kenyan constitution. Currently she is in private practice, but there are goals in other area that she has set her sights on.

She is also a talented writer. She has written four novels reflecting deep issues in contemporary Botswana: the struggle between traditional and Western values, the AIDS pandemic (Botswana and South Africa compete for the world’s highest infection rates), and ritual murder.

The Screaming of the Innocent is a powerful book. A young girl vanishes; the police guess that she has been eaten by a lion, but the reader knows that she has been ritually murdered for body parts reputed to bestow great power. Years later a female student doing national service in the community comes across a box of clothing which seems to belong to the missing girl. But after she draws attention to it, the box vanishes. She seeks out a friend – now a lawyer – and the two young women pursue the matter together.

The book is good not only because of the intriguing characters and plot, but because the reader finds the premise completely believable because the perspective is purely African. To westerners, witchcraft has become almost flippant superstition – like avoiding a black cat. But in many African cultures it is not only respected and feared, but deeply believed. It is this that Dow manages to capture so well in her novel. She makes no bones about the influence of male dominance being connected with these issues. When her evil characters are plotting the murder, they look for “a man with a hard heart, a heart of stone, a heart of a real man”. And, of course, they find such a man. The heroine follows the twists and turns and seems to be taking us to a successful resolution. But Africa is often not like that.

The book was first published in 2002 by Spinifex Press in Australia – a boutique publisher specialising in books focussing on women’s issues – and subsequently published in South Africa. Fortunately, it is widely available. It is a harrowing book, but one well worth reading.

It is tempting to see the premise of the story as an ingenious (if ghoulish) invention, but it is probably based on a real case which would have been well known to Dow. In 1994 a 14-year-old girl named Segametsi and her friend Monnye decided to sell oranges in Mochudi (a small town where they lived) to raise money for a church trip to Francistown. The girls separated near the house of a man called Mokgalo. Segametsi was never seen alive again. Her body was found with fatal chest wounds and a variety of body parts removed, possibly while she was still alive. Clearly she had been murdered to harvest these organs for muti, “medicine” made from human flesh.

Nothing was obvious about the case. Circumstantial evidence pointed to Mokgalo and he was held briefly, perhaps as much for his own safety. Soon he was released. Monnye then came up with a story that Mokgalo previously had made advances to Segametsi. Mokgalo was held again. And in an almost unbelievable turn of events the girl’s father made a confession that he had accepted a promise of 1,200 pula (about $150) to help with the girl’s abduction. Mokgalo was held for two months. During that time the police became suspicious of the stories they had been told. The father was sent for mental examination. Both the father and the Monnye eventually withdrew their stories, and the suspects were released. This led to rioting in Mochudi and nearby Gaborone and the focus moved from the murder to public order. The police and soldiers reacted violently and many people were injured. One was deliberately killed by a policeman.

The government was under continuing pressure and eventually was obliged to ask Scotland Yard to send a team to independently investigate the murder and the police conduct of the case. This lack of trust in the police and people in authority is all reflected in Dow’s novel.

The policeman who killed the suspected rioter was sentenced for manslaughter and the government paid his family about $100,000 in compensation. Mokgalo won a case for wrongful arrest, but describes himself as a broken man who is still treated with suspicion. The Scotland Yard report has never been made public. No one has been arrested for the murder of Segametsi.

The belief in the power of evil medicines and witches has another somewhat unexpected and damaging consequence. Since witchcraft is used to ensure success in financial and other ventures, it can be dangerous to appear too successful. If you have risen faster and farther than others, is it not possible that you too may have dabbled with muti? This perception may be very dangerous for you indeed. It is safer to be mediocre…

Michael – Thursday.

Best in Show

2013-06-05T17:14:00.002-04:00

Note how big France is - I would have placed Texas a little more to the east

Growing up in Texas I remember the pride associated with everything being bigger in Texas than elsewhere. I was too young to have at the time wondered what the connection was or how this came to be their thing. But later in life I read up on it and although I found nothing absolutely conclusive everything pointed to the state‘s geographical size and former ranking as the largest state in the USA. Until Alaska which was a hard swallow for Texans apparently.

Iceland would not have had a problem with this Alaska business if we had been Texas. There are so many ways to look at things it is merely a matter of choosing a viewpoint. For one you could say that Alaska is detached and therefore not a contender - it is really more Canada than USA, when comparing states. Also there are pieces breaking off the state so its size is a varying figure not reliable enough to be taken seriously. Then there is the snow. Who really knows what is under all that snow in the middle part and the top edge – could be a big hole that should be subtracted. And so on. An Iceland-Texas would remain the largest state – at least within Iceland-Texas.

Here we are the same as the Texans I recall from childhood. We are very proud when we are best at something or top any list, preferably if it is a good list although this is not altogether a rule set in stone. In the absence of a good list a bad list will do.

Just recently it was reported here that Iceland had topped a list – in three categories even. The list was prepared by Yale and Columbia Universities and was supposed to rank 163 countries in a cool to not-at-all-cool order.

photo from: www.clean-iceland.com

To cut a long story short Iceland was considered the cleanest country in respect to the purity of water and air and the effect of the environment on the health of the population. Iceland was also considered the most peaceful country and here they gauged unrest and violence. It was also ranked as the friendliest country. The report did not mention which country actually ended up being the coolest country – leading me to suspect vaguely that it was not Iceland.

Amongst other categories and the countries that topped them were: Happiest people in the world: Columbia, best country to be female: New Zealand, highest education levels: Canada, least friendly country: Bolivia, richest country: Qatar. You would think with all that money they could afford a “u” to place behind the “Q”.

And of the countries represented on this blog, two others got mention beside Iceland.

Most pessimistic: France

Most sex (presumably per capita): Greece

So there you have it. If you are planning your vacation Iceland is the place to go if you are looking for peace, cleanliness and friendliness. If you are in the market to curb your giddiness then France is the ticket and Greece …. I think I will leave it to Jeffery to wrap this sentence up for me.

Yrsa - Wednesday

Paris Shooting Gallery

2013-06-04T01:46:00.000-04:00

Above you see Lee Miller and Man Ray at a Surrealist ball in Paris featuring a shooting Gallery. At every street carnival and fun fair in France you'll find one, too with prizes like stuffed animals.

Soon Paris will open another kind of permanent shooting gallery – a secure environment for taking hard drugs – in the 10th arrondissement near the Gare du Nord train station. That's where you get off the Eurostar. A site had been approved near La Chapelle Metro stop on national railway land. The drug injection room will provide users with sterile needles, and drug use will be supervised by doctors, nurses and social workers.

The arrondissement’s mayor, Rémi Féraud, told a press conference on Thursday that the gallery would be open in the fall.

Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, has green lighted the shooting gallery but faced differing opinions. Vocal opposition has come from local inhabitants and politicians have reacted strongly. An official from the conservative UMP party said 'I see this as yet another moral defeat. It’s an encouragement to break the law.'

Here's Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre at an Existential Shooting Gallery.

Meanwhile, the Health Minister reacted saying that the government would crack down on trafficking and drug consumption, adding that the Conservative opposition’s criticism was '...removed from reality. This is about helping sick people, helping addicts so that they seek advice from medical professionals and social workers, and obtain help to quit drug use.'

The Health Minister also stressed that the site was 'sufficiently far from residential areas, schools and shops to not pose a serious risk of public disorder.'
But that's not the tune of a mother who lives with her children in an apartment across from the street.

The Health Minister also added that the project was 'aimed at reducing the number of people taking drugs in the street, in common areas of apartment buildings and other areas such as car parks.'

The area would be given a boosted police presence, she added, to prevent dealers from selling their wares nearby.

The area around the Gare du Nord is already plagued by drugs and petty crime.

And the plan to open a shooting gallery there has attracted considerable hostility from local residents’ associations, who fear the area, described as an 'open air drugs market' will be further degraded by the presence of a shooting gallery.

A snap vote organised by a local councillor in April found that of 300 residents who cast their ballot, 93 percent were opposed to the opening of the gallery.

Paris already distributes free sterile needles for drug users. Of the 300,000 handed out in 2012, half of them were from distribution points near the Gare du Nord.

Shooting galleries exist in a handful of European countries, including France's neighbors Switzerland and Germany and Portugal.
Cara - Tuesday

A Post Post-Crimefest

2013-06-03T17:53:00.003-04:00

Are the Obamas very tall or the Queen very not so?

No respectable newspaper would ever hire me as a reporter. I would get an assignment, get distracted and send in a piece with little resemblance to what the original article was to revolve around. As a testament to this, today‘s blog posting was to be all about Crimefest but will go off in a tangent.

On the first evening in Bristol I happened to see the Queen on the TV news. She stepped out of a chauffeur driven limo, wearing one of those pastel coats and a pair of sensible queen shoes, a purse hanging on her forearm. The purse caught my attention and for the whole time of the festival I kept pondering what the queen carried around in that purse.

Regular, non-queen women keep all sort of stuff in the purses. A wallet, keys, make-up stuff, tissues, change and you name it really. But no matter what you would normally expect to find, very little of it would be of any use to the Queen. For one, she is hardly going to arrive at Buckingham Palace and have to unlock the door with a key. And she does not have much need for a credit card or money as she never goes shopping. The King is unlikely to phone her when she is on her way back home to remind her they are out of milk and ask her to drop by a grocery store. As for the rest, I don’t think Queens blow their noses much and they probably have a make-up artist to take care of the lipstick etc. Austerity measures might even have made it so that the make-up artist was made take on tissue tasks.

So what is in the purse? A telescopic scepter? At one point I came to the conclusion that she had to be a secret smoker. That is not something you get the servants to do for you.

But I was put out of my misery by the Crimefest team that found an old article online revealing what the Queen chugs around in that purse. A five pound note for church boxes, a lipstick and a hook. Three things in total. And one of them is a hook? Now before this sounds too interesting I must divulge that the hook in question is one of those gadgets that you use to hook your purse to the edge of a table when you sit down to eat.

I should really send her an e-mail. Stick the lipstick and the five pound note in your coat pocket and then you can leave the purse at home. You won’t need the hook since you no longer carry a purse so it can stay at home as well.

But further investigation led to another interesting queen purse fact, namely that the queen uses the purse to signal her staff. I did not manage to read how and for what but seeing that she is unlikely to start waving it in circles around her head, the number of different signals she is able to make are very limited. I could mention this in my e-mail as well. Get one of those laser pointers – you and your staff can work out a system for red dots on different body parts. A red dot on the chest could mean: Get me out of here or I will hang you from my now useless hook. A red dot on a trouser leg: I seem to notice corgi hairs on my dress, get the sticky roll. And so on.

Now where have you seen this photo before? And before that?

But I was supposed to provide you Crimefest news. These are the ones that matter most:

A. Crimefest was great, better than ever. It will be even more fun next year so hurry and register while they offer a discounted fee.

B. The Murder is Everywhere showing did exceptionally well on all their panels.

C. Peter James was unable to make it as he was in a car crash while racing (in a race). He will recover 100%.

D. Someone threw up on one of the panels although I was unable to pin this down with respect to who and on which panel. Zoe Sharp did find a bucket on hers so we know in which room it occurred. But I have forgotten the name of it.

E. Team Ali Karim, Peter Rozovsky, Ragnar Jonasson and Michael Linane came in second in the pub quiz but would have won if they had not been second.

F. No one likes the Icelandic drink Opal, aside from one Irish woman.

So that’s it and there you have it. Oh wait, I have one more photo to share. What I lack in reporting skills I make up for in amassing photos.

Barbara, Jeff and Yrsa - at the bar discussing world finance and peace. For some reason it is green outside.

Yrsa - Wednesday

Mystic Yeast!

2013-06-02T04:20:00.000-04:00

It's just about two weeks till my next book launches, and I'm kinda crazed. This will be my third published book, so the process is sort of familiar but still new enough to be pretty, well, new! And the whole thing is kind of overwhelming.

So right now I have the brain space of a caffeinated flea. Meaning that....

It's time for more Chinese signs!

Seen at the Qingdao Beer factory...I want a T-shirt!

Strange stones indeed! (click to embiggen)

Because you don't want to be pulled over by a cartoon policeman

"Eating the World-Wide Delicious!" (click to embiggen)

I promise, I will sidewalk!

And I won't occupy while stabling.

But would you want to live there?

This sign means, "Be Careful When Tossing Food to the Gulls," I think.

I am not sure what "mew" has to do with it.

Yes, this is what you think.

Lisa....Sunday...

CrimeFest Sleep Deprivation Report #2

2013-06-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

I am so tired. What a long day. I’m struggling to stay awake as I type this. It’s tougher than being up until the wee hours of the morning on Mykonos. We are in Bristol U.K.—that being the royal “we” as in the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, venue for CrimeFest 2013. Stanley, Annamaria, I, Caro, Yrsa, and Michael are all here. But you probably already knew that if you read Stan’s post on Thursday.

Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

Yesterday (Friday) was particularly tiring with eight panel appearances among us, and Yrsa kicks off today’s (Saturday’s) program with a panel at 10AM.

Just a wee bit of available breakfast buffet.

A lot of interesting folks here and the conversation has been non-stop, substantive, and sobering. Although using the word “sober” in the context of any reference to a writer’s conference is highly suspect. (I’m sure Yrsa will have more on that subject on Monday.)

We should have declared this a “hiatus” week and posted gems from our past blogs as we do when so many of us attend the Bouchercon convention. But none of us thought that far ahead, except for Caro who gets a gold star on her permanent record card for diligence. But as I’m about to fall face down on the keyboard (stone cold sober, but exhausted), I’ll sign off now with a few photos of the good times we’re having.

Yrsa

Caro

A fan with Bill Gottfried

A fan's fan with Toby Gottfried

It takes a village...uhh, meritage

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Jeff—Saturday

No place like home

2013-05-31T00:30:00.000-04:00

My pal, Gavin Bell, is a former foreign correspondent with Reuters and The Times. He is a man born with, as my wee granny would say 'ants in his pants.' He is now a travel writer and has been to more than 80 countries from the Antarctic to Zanzibar, from Madagascar to Fiji. He has stood on volcanoes as they erupted, been attacked by a shark named Margaret off the Southern Cape and he was one of the first to interview Mandela on his release. They struck on a topic of conversation that continued for many years; football. Seemingly Desmond Tutu is a Motherwell supporter. Sorry, THE Motherwell supporter! I think the other one died of boredom at half time in 1942 and nobody noticed.

Gavin has lived the life of the adventurous explorer, living on the edge, being shot at in many peculiar places both geographically and anatomically. For an interview in a national paper he was asked by a fellow travel writer where his favourite place in the world was and he replied without any hesitation, Largs.

Gavin's book on wandering the South Sea Islands looking for RLS. He calls that work!

That story came to mind as I sit here, in Largs, scribbling. It is the 26th of May, I am writing in short bursts of longhand as the only way I can keep my fingers from freezing is to wrap them round my cup of Americano. It is very cold here.

When I was small I had loads of aunts/uncles/grandparents that I wasn’t related to. Looking back they were unpaid childminders as both my parents worked. My sister and I were the first children to live in the small square for over 40 years so we had doting grannies and granddads galore. It was our great treat to be taken on the bus down to Largs and have a cake at the Green Shutters Tea Room on the seafront (from where I am writing this blog). In those days it was the height of sophistication as a selection of cakes appeared on a stand on the table and you paid for what you ate. If my mother was there, my sister and I might get half a meringue between us- she got all the cream and I got the glace cherry. If we were with Mrs Jeffries, we scoffed the lot.

Largs is a pretty place. It sits on the Firth of the Clyde in North Ayrshire about 30 miles from Glasgow. The original Gaelic name means 'the slopes'. It’s a popular seaside resort with a tiny harbour, and famous for Nardini's ice cream and Vikings (eating the former and fighting the latter).

In 1263 the Scots and Norwegians had a bit of an exchange of views and interestingly both sides have claimed victory in their sagas. It was after that battle and the Treaty of Perth in 1266 that the Hebrides were sold back to Scotland, with the Isle of Man thrown in as a buy one get one free deal. But we all made up in the end and in 1944 King Haakon the 7^th of Norway, exiled due to German occupation, visited Largs and became its first honorary citizen. Every year at the end of the summer there is a range of beating up Viking activities and the traditional burning of a Viking galley during a firework display.

In the 19^th Century, Largs was a busy and popular resort, large hotels appeared but it was when the railway came in 1895 things really took off for Largs. It became a fashionable place to live. Famous Largs folk include Daniela Nardini (award winning actress and daughter of the ice cream empire.)

William Thomson - better known as Lord Kelvin- he of the physics formulae but I am sure you all know that.

Lord Kelvin trying to find the formula for the perfect Kardashian!

And Thomas Brisbane who gave his name to a crater on the Moon, the Brisbane river, the city of Brisbane, and the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium. Sam Torrance the golfer, Lou Macari footballer and all round lovie John Sessions are all Largs born.

And of course the Waverley paddle steamer, the last ocean going paddle steamer in the world makes regular trips in the summer months. It's reported she floats like a butterfly, moves like a panther, steers like a cow. It's not the first time she's taken a pier away with her on her departure.

The town still tries hard as a tourist destination. There is the Vikingar Centre which has interactive advice on how to beat up a Viking. It is still best known for Nardini's which is a famous ice cream parlour, cafe and restaurant. The shop still has glass bottles of sweeties and trays of pastries to die for. Loads of my elderly patients get the train down to Largs for a fish tea special. My own favourite is a chip butty and an Irn Bru, sitting on the sea wall while trying to fight off seagulls with high blood cholesterol.

Largs getting a tourist seal of approval.

People who find nothing to do in Largs tend to get the ferry over to Cumbrae where there is even less to do. The ferries bing bong across the Firth like a game of tennis with both players rooted at the baseline, the air is regularly punctuated by the grinding of the metal car ramp being driven up the slipway. Often the pilots have to give a quick blast on the horn as a sailboat caught in a quiet wind tries to run the gauntlet.

The high street of Largs is full of For Sale signs. So many folk retire to Largs and die, the local cooncil had to ban any more lawyers and estate agents from setting up business. This is the result. This is a crowded beach.

The air is tinged with salt, from the sea and from the numerous chip shops on the front. There are two sets of shows on the front, both for wee kids. This is the west coast equivalent of the Las Vegas strip. The music was very Dean Martin skewed by the low quality and high volume, it slowed down and speeded up in time with the wee cars as they went round.

The famous Nardini building still dominates the north of Largs high street. It has an old fashioned tea room. Many times I have sat in their 1950's chairs listening to some jazz and people watching, munching a toastie while he devours a lemon drizzle cake. He looks with awe at those brave enough to tackle the north face of a knickerbocker glory without oxygen. Those were the days.

The patriarch founder of the business died and the two brothers eventually started to disagree on the way the business should move forward. In an interview, the actress daughter (Daniela) spoke of the feud over what part of the family got to keep the family name. The court battle cost a fortune. Even more than one of their knickerbocker glories.

So even though it's a bit old and done, a bit smelly and a bit run down, the ghost of the old Largs is still here and the shadows are long. The place keeps pulling you back like some genetic whiplash just in case you ever forget your roots and forget where you came from.

I guess after all that globetrotting what Gavin really meant, was there is no place like home...

I'm off to Bristol now.....

Caro GB Friday 31st May 2013

A tired blog from Crimefest

2013-05-30T18:04:00.000-04:00

I am also at Crimefest - feeling very zonked after the flights from Minneapolis to Heathrow, this time via Atlanta. So I am going to make the blog very short, with the promise of photos and commentary sometime soon.

The flights all worked well, and I arrived at Heathrow 30 minutes early, which resulted in me having to stand in line an extra 30 minutes awaiting passport control and immigration. The standing wasn't that bad, since I hadn't slept on the plane and was impervious to discomfort - except for the elderly Aussie man (or Brit pretending to be an Aussi man) who tried to push into the queue 50 people from the end.

I am not fond of queue jumpers so I politely told him where the end of the queue was. He thanked me politely and pushed in 45 places from the end of the queue. I was too tired to even mind.

I was so tired I made a cardinal mistake when the immigration officer asked me where I was going and what I was doing. "Bristol," I replied. "To a convention."

"So you are here on business?"

The penny dropped. A "yes" would be the wrong answer.

"No," I said. "I'm going to a crime convention."

Whoops. That also wasn't the right thing to say.

"I mean, I am going to a crime writers' meeting."

"A crime writers' meeting? What's that?"

Anyway a few minutes later I was allowed to pass into the hallowed lands of Great Britain, leaving the friendly Indian lady shaking her head.

Heathrow Express, extending of my senior railcard, and the train trip to Bristol all worked well. Amazing. I was in the hotel about 4 hours after landing at LHR.

I was energized when I met Michael, who had arrived yesterday, Yrsa and her husband Ole, Jeff and his partner Barbara, and Caro. Not to mention convention salwarts Bill and Toby Gottfried and Murder is Everywhere contributor Annamaria Alfieri.

Stan, Annamaria, Jeff, Caro, Yrsa, and Michael

It is people like this that really are the great attraction of Crimefest.

Now to sleep. More later.

zzzzzzzzzzzz

Stan - Thursday

2013-05-29T19:34:00.000-04:00

I have just arrived to Bristol for Crimefest. The murder is everywhere team has a good showing and although I am way too tired at the moment to write anything worth anything I promise a round up of events this coming Monday, quick and dirty and hopefully loaded with shocking relevations. Not really, crime writers and crime readers are way too nice - I would be lucky to manage a single piece of juicy gossip. But my ears and eyes will be on amber alert.

But before I log off I must mention that the guy at the car rental at Heathrow misunderstood my reply when he asked me where I was going and said at the end of the exchange: Good luck in finding a crimewave! Perhaps he believed me and my husband to be a new type of storm chasers, crime chasers.

Til Monday.

Yrsa - Wednesday

After 148 years the Nuns get out of Paris jail

2013-05-28T10:47:00.001-04:00

The nuns left their cells last month for the last time. Since the 19th century the Sisters of Marie-Joseph and Mercy have lived with female prisoners on Ile de la Cité in the 'Depot' so called for the cells under the the Tribunal which hold prisoners in transit between custody and possible incarceration. For 148 years this order of nuns have cared for female inmates and lived next to them in the holding cells.

The five remaining nuns lived in the same spartan cells, caring for women who awaited charges before a magistrate.

But with the crisis of vocations and an aging congregation, they couldn't find the necessary recruits.

On 23 April, they were treated to a final tribute, in the chapel of the 'Depot', where Cardinal Vingt-Trois, celebrated a mass for them saying "Where no one has voluntarily gone, we celebrate the service of those who have willingly gone out of love for others."

Soon, the Sisters of the 'Depot' will retreat to a monastery. Yet they will continue to maintain a presence in the bowels of the courthouse, training citizen volunteers to take over and help. But the volunteers won't live in the cells.

Cara - Tuesday

The Scottish Play; Macbeth

2013-05-27T00:30:00.000-04:00

I am a secret squirrel. On a secret mission.

(the secret castle; our mission)

I am undercover to do a dangerous and thrilling investigation for Murder is Everywhere. I am standing in for Caro Ramsay who knows absolutely nothing about my secret quest. My current position is somewhere on the battlements of Cawdor Castle. My mission (as I wished to accept it) is to find the truth about the Thane of Cawdor. I am the 'Wean of Cawdor'. If you are from Glasgow, that is a really funny joke. If not, laugh anyway. Who is the Thane of Cawdor I hear the illiterati ask? You may know him as another name.

Macbeth.

Yes that one. But it's bad luck to say it, so it's Mac****!

Mark McManus

I always thought that Taggart was the best murder drama to come out of Scotland but it turns out that the Shakespeare chappie got there first.

All that 'Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?' stuff ( Was he on drugs? Od'd on the Irn Bru? I need to know). Him of the double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and caldron bubble. Wouldn't know about that, we have an Aga.

The pink pest err princess from Inverness

I will be both assisted and hindered in my assignment by The Pink Princess of Inverness (see poetry and everything!!). She is mostly a hindrance due to her pink addiction. Also on duty is the Hound of the Baskernuts ... Hector is a ferocious hound. A dog who will defend us to his death, against all enemies fearless and brave - unless you give him a hobnob. He doesn't bite. The thought of him sitting on you is terrifying enough.

Descended from a wolf, evolved into a sofa

Our quest, dear Murder Is Everywhere readers is to prove or disprove that Macbeth was a murderer. Or if he existed? Where does the fiction stop and the fact start? Or vice versa? I will examine the detail of the transgressive nature of Macbeth within a psychosocial framework of the history in a temporal space and the literature using the Frankfurt school of critical theory.

Me, secret squirrel at your service

First I will have an ice cream.

Once I have passed my first challenge, getting the ice cream in my mouth and not all over my face, I am going to begin by exploring the Scottish play that the Brummie bloke with the funny beard wrote while considering his beard and his hairstyle and thinking that he might have his head on upside down.

The play-that-must-not-be-named kicks off by being scary ... very scary indeed. The three old biddies like my granny and her bingo pals are having a wee chin wag while boiling their underwear in a cauldron and they promise MacB*** great things. Probably a bit like being in front of Sharon Osbourne on the X factor.

They tell him that he will become Thane of Cawdor, like a sheriff, then king of Scotland. The only problem is Scotland already had a king.

Kings in these days were a bit like reality TV shows and cuts in public spending. Don't worry if you miss one, there will be another one along in minute.

Mac**** has a wee think about all this but his missus is a bit of a pushy bird and forces him to do bad things.

I have no idea where Shakespeare went but he never came to Burnham wood - and the wood never got as far as Dunsinane. "Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him." I tried this journey, moving the forest twig by twig as you can see.

Cawdor has a great wood of its own, thank you!

Dunsinane Hill is near the village of Callace in Perthshire. It is not very high. As hills go, in Scotland, it's rubbish.

In a nutshell, Mrs. Mac**** is a bit pushy, she aids and abets the death of King Duncan so her husband can be king. But the old dears said it was the descendants of Banquo who will reign so Mac**** kills Banquo to stop that happening. But Mac**** is troubled by a ghost, his conscience, indigestion or just the fact that his missus never stops moaning. From then on it's a bit like a Caro Ramsay novel, everybody dies, or goes mad, often both at the

same time.

Like most fiction writers, Shakespeare never allowed truth or geography to get in the way of a good story. The real Mac**** was a big red headed guy who told jokes a lot. When he was in charge the country ran well and at a profit. Which is more than be said for the current situation. Mac**** went on tour, a bit like Kate and William but without the frocks. He also nipped over the border and bopped the English a few times for which we applaud him. This was all around the 11th century which makes him slightly older than my dad but Mac**** had more hair. In Scots he was called Mac Bethad mac Findláich so you see why it's wise to resort to asterisks. It means Mac**** son of Finlay. Who his mother actually was is not agreed on, but presumably his dad had some vague idea.

Then the English butted in as usual, upsetting the peace and quiet. In 1054, Macbeth was challenged by Siward, Earl of Northumbria. Siward was attempting to return Duncan's son Malcolm Canmore, (his nephew) to the throne. Are you following all this? In 1057, Macbeth was killed at the Battle of Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire by Malcolm, who then went on later to become Malcolm III.

Not Malcolm X, that was a different dude all together.

And that was the end of that. No witches, no ghosts, no wandering about seeing daggers before my eyes, no soliloquies on battlements. But then how would we know about a soliloquy if the point is that nobody else hears it. Or do you eavesdrop while hiding behind the arras while discussing what pencil to use.. 2B or not 2B. Or am I on the wrong play now?

Old Will knew how to coin a phrase. Fair is foul, and foul is fair... which is how my dad plays football.

“Nought’s had, all’s spent,

Where our desire is got without content:

Tis safer to be that which we destroy

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy”

Lady Macbeth finds that getting what you want doesn't bring peace. She knew that thing about you don’t get what you want - you get what you need.

This is my trip to Cawdor castle, this is indeed Cawdor castle but it might not really have much to do with anything, the family still live there, the young laird still goes around the village, starting the annual tug of war competition. The castle is open to visitors in the summer, but as this was too early, we went sneak about. With The Pink Princess of Inverness and the Hound of the Baskernuts.

The pink pest with her invisible Sig Hauer (left hand). See dead ted in the back ground, he was used as target practice.

As I said, Cawdor Castle is famous for the Great Wood, it’s not great it’s fantastic!

It has loads of trees; Birch, Aspen, Rowan, Wych Elm, Holly and Juniper. Scots Pine, Oak and Beech. The wood is lovely with stitchwort, bluebell, ferns, mosses and honeysuckle all mixing with young saplings.

There's also dippers, capercaillies, herons, wrens and numerous species of birds of prey mixed with migrants from crossbills to waxwings. Wild pheasants are everywhere! The wild peasants stay in the village.

Red and roe deer have a wee wander in as well, relaxed in the knowledge that the hound of the baskernut is way too fat to chase anything except pizza.

I need to end my report now, as it is bath time.

Name - Secret Squirrel,

Location - Cawdor Castle

Rank - very small person

signing off for Murder is everywhere, Monday 27th May 2013, bedtime.

Hello. Goodbye. Okay.

2013-05-26T01:43:00.000-04:00

One of the reasons that I like to stay in Gulou, around the Drum Tower, is the satisfaction I get every time I take the short cut I know of from the place I often stay to Gulou Dong Dajie, the street you take to get to my favorite bar, which lies on a tiny lane just off of it. I get a weird little thrill, coming back from the bar late at night, by myself, buzzed on a couple of beers, when the traffic has died down and most of the people are off the street, just a few couples and workers here and there, and a random drift of paper blown on the cold breeze. I walk through the plaza, past these, you know, ancient buildings, tourist attractions by day that I have practically to myself by night, and it just gets me every time—how cool is this?

There's a coffee place I like on one end of the square, close to the Drum Tower, and I was heading there my last night in Beijing, just after sunset. The weather had turned bitter-cold again, after a few days of temps in the 40s; the wind had kicked up, and even though I've gotten better at handling cold, that knife-edged wind is something I doubt I'll ever get used to.

I'd just entered the square by the Bell Tower when a middle-aged Chinese woman came up to my side and said, "Hello!"

"Hello," I replied.

"Hello," she said again. She clutched two unwrapped rolls of toilet paper against her body.

I don't remember what I said, something in Chinese, and then she told me that she could also say, "Good-bye!" And "Okay!" And that was all the English she knew.

Meanwhile, an older man had come out of a doorway. I can't remember how we started talking, but he spoke a lot of English. He told me that he was a professor, a teacher, and that he worked restoring historical Chinese buildings, that he'd worked in San Francisco, in Chinatown, doing that work, and that he did that work here now.

"Oh, do you know about the plans for this area?" I asked. Because the various redevelopment proposals are something that very much concerns me.

"I am involved with restoring ancient Chinese buildings," he repeated, not answering me. I'm not actually sure he understood my question.

"This is my favorite place in Beijing," I told him, which is true.

"I want to show you something," he said. He gestured toward the entrance to a building on the square. A "Porcelain Museum," something I'd vaguely noted on occasion but never really paid attention to.

I followed him, wondering what this would turn into.

He nodded at a couple of workers there and we walked past them, into an entry hallway, and then into a large room, almost a hall, filled with examples of porcelain.

"So beautiful," I said, and it really was. I'd had no idea all this was here.

The woman carrying the toilet paper followed us. Was it okay, she asked the older man? He nodded, and gestured that we should continue on. There was another large room, full of porcelain pieces, smaller ones for the most part that later I noticed were for sale. Still beautiful. A workroom, with photos and a sculpted clay head.

Then, an "art gallery."

Cue, "Sense of Mild Dread."

For those unfamiliar, the "art gallery" is one of those, not exactly scams, but opportunistic expressions of Chinese micro-capitalism, as it were. As a foreigner, you'll get approached by a couple of "students" who want to "practice their English," and then show you their classes'/teacher's/uncle's "art gallery." These are exhibits of Chinese paintings that are mostly copies of traditional works, with some peasant folk and countryside realism thrown in. If you're looking for inexpensive paintings of bamboo and birds and goldfish for your walls, these actually can be a pretty good deal, and hey, I've bought a couple of paintings from various "galleries" over the years.

But there is only so much wall space for copies of famous Chinese paintings.

"This is my painting," the professor said, pointing. "This is my daughter's."

"Very beautiful."

"I want my daughter to study more English," he added.

Meanwhile, the woman perches on the stool, clutching her rolls of toilet paper, every once in a while interjecting a "hello!" and then explaining to me that this is all the English she knows.

"My son studies piano at XXXX**." He pointed at a stack of thin papers, each with a stylized character painted in black ink. "Do you recognize that? That one is 'le.' Also, 'yue.'"

"Happiness, and music."

"Yes. I make those." He smiled. "My design. Today I have over 60 visitors from XXXX**. I made this for them. 'Le.'"

The stylized "le" has little loops, like musical notes. He sings: "Do, re, mi, fa..."

He thinks for a moment. "Because it is Christmas. And because I have been drinking no small amount of wine." He laughs and gestures at a tea glass full of dark liquid. "I want to make you a gift."

He takes one of the extra scrolls, asks me for my name, dips his brush into ink, adds my name and "American friend" and "Merry Christmas" to the scroll. Sips his jiu.

"He is very clever," says the woman. "I can only say, 'Hello. Goodbye. Okay.'"

"That's very good," I tell her.

Then, out of nowhere, in English, she says, "Long live Chairman Mao!"

The professor's face freezes. Almost purples. "Do not say that! I don't like that! I don't want to hear it." He shakes his head. "He was a terrible man. Terrible. Like the First Emperor Qin."

I nod. "I heard that a lot when I was in China the first time."

Then he beams, sips his wine. "I like Deng Xiaoping. He was a great man. Did great things for China."

He ssks me for my parents' names, and makes a special scroll for them too. Then, "do you have brothers and sisters?" and he rolls up two more scrolls for them.

"Okay!" says the woman, giving us a thumbs-up.

"She is a little crazy," the professor says, conversationally, in English. "Her family died in the Cultural Revolution."

Finally, he rolls up all of the paintings, wraps them in a newspaper. Mentions again that he wants his daughter to learn more English, and I promise to coach her next time I come to Beijing.

The woman with the toilet paper walks me across the square, past the parked rickshaws. The wind has come up cold. "The professor is really smart," she tells me, "but he drinks too much. My husband drank himself to death. He was only forty-seven."

"I'm sorry," I say.

She brightens,"I will be sixty!" she tells me (sixty being an auspicious age in China).

"Oh, that's very good. You'll be sixty soon?"

"Now I am fifty-three," she says. "I want to show you my house! It's behind the coffee bar."

"Oh, I was going to that coffee bar," I say, as she clutches my arm and hurries me towards it.

"Laoban!" she calls out as we approach the coffee bar. "I'm going to show her my house!" We step over the threshold. "Siheyuanr," she says, the name for the traditional hutong housing. And it's a small wing of a courtyard house. "These are my clothes that I washed." She points to a clothesline, stretched across a window, pants and shirts fluttering in the shelter of the courtyard. "You can look inside. See? See?” I look through the window. A tiny room, painted white, with cartoon characters on the walls.

“I have more rooms than just this one," she tells me.

Then she walks me back to the coffee house, clutching my arm tight, and says "goodbye."

(**Famous foreign music conservatory. Name changed for privacy's sake)

Lisa...Sunday...

Mykonos, Listen to the Music. Please.

2013-05-25T00:00:00.000-04:00

I’m wound up. Translation: Pissed off by an argument I had with an arrogant rent-a-cop type who told an elderly tourist couple walking beside a wall on Mykonos’ main street that they couldn’t stop to look across the wall at the sea, because the wall was “private property.”

Old photos courtesy Dimitris Koutsoukos

So, today I’m writing about a different side of Mykonos, not its iconic windmills and pelicans, dozens of breathtaking beaches, or fevered nightlife.

No, today its all about the iconic hospitality of the Mykonian people inexorably linked to the island’s glorious past—and the fevered sorts who’ve come to change it all with promises to the locals that make the Harold Hill fast-talking con man character in “The Music Man” a paragon of virtue and truthfulness by comparison.

Obviously, the situation exploited by the fictional salesman in “The Music Man”—to save River City, Iowa’s children from the sins of ruination symbolized by a pool hall—is quite different from what confronts Mykonos. Mykonos’ hustlers are real, and they’ve come with a goal of turning the entire island into a “pool hall,” offering the “sins of ruination” as enticements, not warnings.

I’m not talking about crooked politicians who line their pockets with funds stolen from hospitals, schools, roads, public services, and so on, that’s a subject for the courts to decide.

I’m talking about those masters of the craft of selling the sizzle not the steak. Or, if you prefer fish, they know the perfect bait for landing the big one every time. It’s hard to resist promises of fame, celebrity, and wealth, especially when the salesmen are smooth. And Mykonos attracts the best, because these guys come to where the money, sex, and action are to be found. In the United States they make a beeline for HOLLYWOOD (known to some not so fondly as ‘fraud central USA” for all the scams run there under the guise of “the Biz”) or Las Vegas where “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” (translation: your money and/or soul).

Hey, I’m no prude. I love Vegas and LA. I got engaged in one and married in the other. [Pause to reconsider the penultimate sentence. :)]

But, I accept those places for what they are: Polities born out of unfettered development, selective enforcement of codes and ordinances, and acceptance of the ruthless and unscrupulous into their midst. If that’s the path Mykonos chooses to pursue, fine. But no one should be misled into believing such changes have made or will make their island a “better” place. What they most certainly do is make it a different place. Whether better or worse depends on whom you ask and only their great-grandchildren will know the truth.

But of all Mykonos’ many natural blessings—sea, sun, beaches, and breezes—the one I most fear the island losing is what at its heart distinguishes Mykonos from all other places on this earth just as beautiful, if not more so: The unwavering hospitality of its people.

Lose that and, “Bye-bye now.”

Jeff—Saturday